{"id":810,"date":"2018-08-03T17:44:01","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T22:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/?p=810"},"modified":"2019-08-06T15:49:06","modified_gmt":"2019-08-06T20:49:06","slug":"journalist-of-the-year-honor-still-sinking-in-for-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/journalist-of-the-year-honor-still-sinking-in-for-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalist of the Year honor \u2018still sinking in\u2019 for Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By SIERRA PORTER<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NABJ Monitor<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">DETROIT \u2014 Jemele Hill knows plenty about what happens when journalists become a part of the story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cShe\u2019s been writing, reporting, an anchor for ESPN and worn multiple hats,\u201d said Sarah Glover, president of the National Association of Black Journalists. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Glover said Hill has done great journalism, and because of her fearlessness, Hill was chosen as the 2018 Journalist of the Year. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cJemele attended her first NABJ Convention in 1992 here in Detroit, and to now be honored in her hometown of Detroit is incredible,\u201d Glover said. \u201cSo we\u2019re excited to lift her up and celebrate her.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hill said she is proud to celebrate a \u201csurreal moment\u201d as NABJ\u2019s Journalist of the Year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s pretty incredible, and it\u2019s still sinking in,\u201d Hill said after her Intersection of Racism and Sexism in Sports panel Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hill has dealt with criticism and harassment for her strong views on political and social matters. However, she said her work experience didn\u2019t change as much as people would have thought after her comments about U.S. President Donald Trump and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt wasn\u2019t extremely difficult to get back into the swing of things,\u201d Hill said. \u201cIt kind of helped that before I came off suspension, then-president of the company John Skipper and me, had a breakfast meeting and cleared the air, so I felt positive coming back to work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Sept. 11, Hill made a series of tweets critical of Trump, including describing him as a &#8220;white supremacist.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w\/ other white supremacists.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) <a href=\"&lt;\/span&gt;&lt;a href=\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/jemelehill\/status\/907391978194849793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&#8221;&gt;September<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 11, 2017<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async=\"\" src=\"&lt;\/span&gt;&lt;a href=\" https:=\"\" platform.twitter.com=\"\" widgets.js\"=\"\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hill\u2019s employer, ESPN, issued a statement saying Hill&#8217;s comments &#8220;do not represent the position of ESPN. We have addressed this with Jemele, and she recognizes her actions were inappropriate.&#8221; On Oct. 9, ESPN suspended Hill for two weeks for a &#8220;second violation of our social media guidelines.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a series of tweets, Hill suggested that fans upset with Jones&#8217; threat to bench any player who does &#8220;anything that is disrespectful to the flag&#8221; should boycott the advertisers who support Jones. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Jan. 25, ESPN announced that Hill would anchor her final \u201cSC6\u201d also known as \u201cThe Six\u201d on Feb. 2 and begin a new role as a columnist at The Undefeated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kevin Merida, editor-in-chief of The Undefeated, said he is excited to have Hill on his team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c(Hill) is an extraordinary journalist, one of the most versatile at ESPN,\u201d Merida said. \u201cShe is a brilliant commentator, columnist, host, interviewer, overall content creator. I was thrilled to have her join The Undefeated.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In an interview with The Monitor, Hill acknowledged that she understood why she was suspended. In fact, she said \u201cshe felt no anger and was aware of the level of scrutiny she was facing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She also said her strong comments about Trump came out of a debate with a Twitter user.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI was back and forth with someone on Twitter, and I said the comments about the president,\u201d she explained. \u201cI think that this person didn\u2019t get it, and it was a lot of things happening in the country at the time. We were pretty fresh off of Charlottesville, and it was just an emotional time. For me, the emotion boiled over.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Often journalists are taught not to become a part of the story. However, for Hill, her comments made her the talk of national news.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When Hill walked into one of her favorite restaurants in Hartford, Connecticut, she saw her name and face on major news outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, and the network that employed her, ESPN.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI had to get used to the fact that things that I said, my life, and who I was, was getting reported on pretty much every day,\u201d she said. \u201cIt didn\u2019t make me change how I do things or who I was; it was just another thing I was going to have to deal with.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She recommends for journalists wanting to speak their mind to do it through the stories they cover because the results may not be the same for everyone else who gives commentary on political or social matters. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI wouldn\u2019t recommend everyone to do what I do because everyone isn\u2019t equipped to do it, and two, everyone\u2019s not equipped to handle what comes along with it, but certainly in journalism, I would say our reporting is our activism,\u201d Hill said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the future, Hill said she hopes to venture off and tell stories in an authentic way, rather than to be restricted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI&#8217;ve done sports for now 20 years, and I\u2019ve always loved sports, but I think I will approach that moment when I don\u2019t think I will necessarily need to do sports, and that it\u2019s OK for me to try something else,\u201d Hill said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>By SIERRA PORTER NABJ Monitor &nbsp; DETROIT \u2014 Jemele Hill knows plenty about what happens when journalists become a part of the story. \u201cShe\u2019s been writing, reporting, an anchor for ESPN and worn multiple hats,\u201d <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/journalist-of-the-year-honor-still-sinking-in-for-hill\/\" title=\"Journalist of the Year honor \u2018still sinking in\u2019 for Hill\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,38,80],"tags":[48,33],"class_list":{"0":"post-810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-archives","8":"category-features","9":"category-nabj-18","10":"tag-jemele-hill","11":"tag-nabj"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811,"href":"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions\/811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nabjmonitor.com\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}